TACTICS TALK: DAEMON SUMMONING

Ok boys and girls, I know that summoning has taken a back seat lately but I honestly believe that there is a great and wonderful way of using the summoning rules to effectively increase the power of your army.

First things first, lets discuss the act of summoning daemons.  This is done at the end of the Movement phase, and only a CHAOS CHARACTER that has not moved can attempt to summon.  The first thing we do is to choose a chaos god.  If the model doing the summoning is dedicated to any particular god, you must choose that god.  Once that is done you roll 1, 2, or 3 D6s and that is your summoning roll.  You may choose ANY Daemon unit, with the daemonic ritual rule, aligned with the previously chosen god, that has a Power Lever equal to or lower than the total of the dice roll.  The summoning character will suffer a mortal wound if any doubles are rolled, and D3 mortal wounds if triples are rolled.  Once you choose a unit, it may take any upgrades and any number of models allowing for points and power level.  You then place this unit anywhere wholly within 12" of the summoning character and more than 9" from any enemy model.

12" is deceptively large.

You must pay points for these units including all upgrades and that is where people shy away from summoning, because it is no longer free units.

I play Word Bearers, and this is the angle I will be taking when I talk about summoning in this article.  Daemons are capable of summoning, but the units they have access to are limited to what god they are aligned with.  Heretic Astartes have access to every daemon unit as long as the character summoning is not aligned to any particular god.

Now that we know the basics of summoning we know that it is by no means a sure thing.  Well there are a number of stratagems that we can get access to that will help us on our way.  First up is the Word Bearer stratagem Dark Pact, it allows you to re-roll any of the dice used to summon and the character will not suffer any mortal wounds for rolling doubles or triples.  Death Guard and Thousand Sons have a similar one that lets you roll 4 dice and not take any mortal wounds for rolling doubles or triples.
The Chaos Daemons codex has a couple as well and I know that I said I would be writing this from the perspective of a Heretic Astartes player, but if you take a detachment of Daemons you gain access to the daemon stratagems.  I'll be straight up with you, there is a bit of contention as to whether an Astartes Character can use them because the FAQ says only Daemon Faction units can use stratagems that mention Daemons.  I think that I am able to use them because the active keywords are CHAOS and CHARACTER.  While the DAEMON keyword is for the units summoned.  Either way, you will need a Daemon detachment in order to gain access to them.  This can be anything from a Battalion Bloodletter Bomb, or a Vanguard of Beasts of Nurgle to keep points down.  You could also do a Supreme Command Detachment, since you need characters to summon units, plus the Heralds have the +1S aura going on.  AND if you keep all the units in the detachment aligned to the same god then you get the extra locus.
Back to the stratagems, Soul Sacrifice lets you roll 4 dice and the summoned unit can re-roll hit rolls of 1 when within 6" of the summoning character, but the summoning character suffers D3 mortal wounds.  This one is dangerous if your using a smaller character like a Herald as there is a chance it will take 6 mortal wounds.  However if you can combine this with Dark Pact, it will greatly increase your summoning power giving you the chance to summon greater daemons and give the big scary unit some re-roll bonuses.

See the Daemon review for my thoughts on the Keeper of Secrets

The second one that the Daemons have access to simply allows you to summon again with the same character which makes not moving that character a little more acceptable.

So we now know how to summon units and the stratagems we can use to help us summon successfully, but there is more to it than that.  You are going to have to think, unfortunately.  This is definitely not a point and click win button.  You are going to have to have a plan and use it.  The thing that makes summoning strong, is that you can actually make multiple plans and put them into effect depending on the circumstances of the battle.

Lets take another look back at the end of the year Meta Review I wrote not long ago and reference some of the things that we need to be able to deal with in a highly competitive arena.  We have re-rolls, alpha strikes, bubble wrap, and mind bullets.  So while you can use the majority of your army to focus on killing the shit out of his, you can use your chunk of points to summon something that can counter any of the issues seen here.

The idea is to use summoning to counter, like this...

Lets start with the trickiest bullshit, the re-rolls.  This may not actually be a viable, or reliable tactic, but if a single character is really increasing the power of your opponent's army, you have to consider trying something.  The Tzeentch psychic tree has 2 powers that are specifically designed for dealing with enemy characters, the first being Bolt of Change and the other being Treason of Tzeentch, both of them having an 18" range, plus the 12" summon range.  So, if you really need to get rid of that character, summon a Tzeentch Herald for that character sniping goodness, and if you have some points in the bank you might get a spawn out of it.  Like I said, not reliable, but its a better shot than most other armies have.  Plus, once the Heralds are out there they can become a distraction, albeit a small one.

You actually have 2 points against the Alpha strike.  Since summoned unit don't count as being part of the army during deployment, they don't count as "drops" when deploying, and they don't count to your number of units you put in reserve.  This should help ensure you get finished deploying your army first for that important +1 to getting the first turn.  Your second point is that a chunk of your army isn't on the table to get shot up.  There are some things you need to keep in mind.  You need to keep enough stuff on the table to keep you alive and in the game if you don't get first turn, +1 does not make the first turn a sure thing.  There are also things that Alpha strike without deep striking, they just hit really fucking hard turn 1.  Hide.
There is another point against Alpha strike lists you can take, some Nurglings in the Daemon detachment.  These guys are great at keeping those deep strikers at bay, not really part of the summoning aspect of it, but if you take that detachment to get access to those stratagems then there you go.  Also if you get to go first you can summon some cheap units at that 12" range to push the enemy landing zone back.

Nurglings segue us nicely into bubble wrap and you can use summoning to both create and pop bubble wrap units.  If you are facing a heavy assault army, get those tough units out there ASAP, you won't even miss out on that first turn of movement as you can wait for them to come to you.  However, if you place your original bubble wrap properly, you will have some space available to summon your new bubble wrap screen.  Plaguebearers work really well here, but once again so do Pink Horrors.  With the ability to spawn Blues and Brims, you will tar pit those Berserkers for days.

Wow, those Berserkers ate my bubble wrap!

I guess I'll make some more...

If you are facing a heavy shooting force, things get a little trickier in that you want something that is durable against what their type of shooting is, whether it's a hail of small arms fire or 20 lascannons.  Once again take a look at my Daemons review for more details on that.

As for popping bubble wrap, Daemonettes rank at the top, a unit of 20 killing 20 cultists or 9 scouts (assuming all models can attack).  However, making that 9" charge is not a guarantee so Pinks, once again, are probably the way to go even if they are only killing 13 cultists.  If he is using units that have a hit modifier, Pink Horrors loose a ton of bite, but flamers don't.  Flamers auto hit, 9 of them are same power level as the 30 Pinks for only 40 points more, and they will nearly kill 3 units of Eldar Rangers, assuming they have range to all 3.  Flamers also start to edge out Pinks as the armour save increases, with their AP and higher S.

Wiping out bubble wrap so the Possessed can charge the tank.

Picking off multiple small units to open ways for deep striking.

The red sticks are 9" long, while the blue one is 18" long.  This is to give you an idea of ranges and distance.

Now trying to get 20-30 extra models on the table could be a bit tricky.  If you are low on table space look for a nearby building.  If you are able to summon the unit into said building you both decrease the size of the overall foot print, you also keep models from getting pushed out of range of shooting.

Finally, those damn mind bullets, or at least psychic powers in general.  Most of the Heralds can deny psychic powers, the Blue Scribes and Fateskimmer/Burning chariot make it harder to cast powers, and if you need something a little tougher or with more punch, Karanak and Flesh Hounds can deny powers.  Nurglings are also a good unit to summon to eat all the smites, as smite auto targets the closest unit and Nurglings are cheap and have DR.  If you need something cheaper you can summon a unit of Brims for 30 points.
As for shooting mind bullets it's Tzeentch Heralds all the way.  With their staffs of change increasing smite to 24", it's a no brainer.  You could make an argument for clutch psychic powers such as Shrivelling Pox and Symphony of Pain, which can be game changing at the right time.

Now, keep in mind that you can have ANY of the above options all for keeping 300-400 points left open for summoning what you need.  There is an overwhelming presence of Tzeentch units that are mentioned above and the main reason for that is because of the 9" charge that is required for assault units to make before they do anything.  Most of the Tzeentch units shoot.  Plus Tzeentch units typically have a better save at 4++.

Shooting is still king

Well, that's about all I got for convincing you that summoning is good.  You can summon something for any situation, shore up any weakness you have, or take advantage of any weakness your opponent has.  Before I end this terrible rambling I will leave you with a couple nifty tricks you can pull, assuming you have ALL the options.

If you NEED to summon something big, use Dark Pact and Soul Sacrifice.  This gives you 4D6, re-rolling any of them, and you will only take the D3 mortal wounds from Soul Sacrifice,  Then you can use a CP to turn that character's alignment to Nurgle and use another CP to regain D3 wounds on that character.  Plus whatever you summon can re-roll 1's to hit when within 6".

If you need something tied up, summon some Seekers, then use the stratagem that lets the same character summon again and get another unit.  This gives you 2 chances to make the charge, plus they can re-roll charge rolls, plus with a banner you get +1" to your charge range.  If you need that unit to stay locked in combat you can summon Fiends instead but that leaves a more difficult charge.

Using a Tzeentch Prince to summon some Pink Horrors, then use the summon again stratagem to summon a Changecaster and cast Flickering Fire on the Pink Horrors.   As long as you get a unit of at least 20 models you're looking at 3 shots each, S4, re-rolling 1's to hit, with +1 to wound, it will kill 8 Marines.  Then you can still cast Warptime to move the Prince, so it's not a total loss of movement.

SPONSOR!

Idle Hands CPU has painted a handful of my models including the Cultists and Possessed found in the above post.  I also just got back a set of Seekers I got him to paint.  Check out some of his work below and on his Facebook page.  If you need some painting done send him a message and see what he can do for you.

Cultist champ found in my army, and in most posts.

Those Seekers I just got back.

40K Relic game pieces